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APPENDIX VIII of his Epistolae, while 311° came as treasure to Leclerc ; the former consisting mainly of elegant epistles from Erasmus, the latter of his more familiar correspondence and of letters and verses from his friends. An examination of the letters printed by Erasmus enables the period during which the letter-book was written to be determined with accuracy. Of the 53 letters contained in the three earliest volumes of Erasmus’ Epistles, A, B, and C’, published in August 1515, Oct. 1516, and April 1517, only three, all from B, appear in the Deventer book, and one of these is a fragment of a few lines only (f. 123), against which the scribe, Hand A, probably the earliest, has written ‘impressa est,’ having discovered his error before he had gone far. But of the 63 letters in D, published in August 1518, as many as 35 are written in the Deventer book, besides 15 which are published in E, Oct. 1519, and 1 in F, August 1521. That these were written into the book before the publication of D is shown by the fact that a number of them contain corrections’ and additions in Erasmus’ hand, which are embodied in the printed text. It is a plain inference, therefore, that the letter-book was copied by Erasmus’ pupils during the years 1517-8. The distribution of the letters contained in the manuscript throws further light on its composition. Out of 366 in all, 336 can be assigned with certainty to their years, which are distributed as follows : T509-12. A I514. II I515. 29 1516. 49 TAE 150 1518. 90 and 3 later, which formed no part of the original letter-book. Of these letters 168 are by Erasmus, 168 by his friends. The date 17 July 1517 forms a sort of dividing line. Only one of Erasmus’ letters (LB. App. 81, dated 28 Sept. 1516) falls before it; only 26 of his friends’ letters are later. It is noticeable that the 4 letters written before 1514 all come from England. Altogether six, or perhaps five, hands can be distinguished in the book. They may be arranged as follows: 1, Hand A, which covers ff. 93-204 continuously, except for a letter written by Hand D on f. 93 v°, evidently in a blank space, and for f. 102, also written by Hand D, which is plainly out of place. The writing varies to a most remarkable degree, from strongly marked curves to straight and regular formations’, in the body of Leclere’s work, it must have been printed from the Ratio Verae Theologiae, Basle, Froben, Nov. 1518. 5 Two pieces, an unfinished letter and a poem, are omitted by Leclere ; two letters are made into one, App. 296; two poems are combined with letters, App. 119 and App. 233; and two letters, 705 and 781, are placed in the body of the work. So that the manuscript as it now stands furnished Leclere with 304 unpublished letters for his Appendix. € It may also be noted that a number of additions appear in the printed versions of which there is no indication in the letter-book, and which were therefore made presumably when the book was in proof. Y TA specimen of Hand A in its straight form is shown in the facsimile of Ep. 215.
